Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A tip is a gratuity from the patron of an organisation to reward good service. We propose to pass legislation to amend the Payment of Wages Act to ensure that tips cannot form part of anyone's wages and that tips are just that: a gift or gratuity between a patron body and a service. In addition, we have agreed with the industry a code of practice on transparency of the tips policy of each individual organisation. The outcome of Sinn Féin's Bill would be employers managing tips on behalf of employees. It would therefore result in all tips being taxed, which would have a negative outcome for the income earnings of the people who work in that relatively low-paid industry in the first instance. It would also have serious financial implications for people's working family payments and medical card applications. There are a lot of unintended consequences of the Bill that I do not think Sinn Féin meant.

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